COURSE OF ANTI-SLAVERY LECTURES.
The new course of Lectures on Slavery, in this city, was commenced on Thursday evening of last week, at the Tremont Temple, by a lecture from Hon. HORACE MANN, and a poem by JOHN G. WHITTIER, read by Rev. THOMAS STARR KING. The attendance, though highly respectable, was not as numerous as last year, when the Temple was crowded, and tickets were at a premium; now, hundreds of tickets evidently remain unsold. Whether this falling off is owing, to any extent, to the inconsistent and reprehensible policy adopted by the Committee, in seeking to place upon the list of lectures the names of some of the most depraved and desperate slaveholders of the South, we do not know; but, if so, we trust it will prove a sufficient warning to the Committee not to commit the same offence again. Our criticism came almost at the last moment, having been unavoidably extorted by the invitation received by us to deliver one of the lectures of the course; but, assuredly, if the same plan shall be pursued another season, we shall spare no pains to make the Temple exhibit, at least as far as earnest anti-slavery men and women are concerned, 'a beggarly account of empty boxes.'
The Rev. EDWARD N. KIRK was elected to make the consecrating prayer:--on what ground, as pertaining to any interest he has shown in the anti-slavery movement, we are at a loss to determine. It is true, that, at a single Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in May, 1835, he ventured to make a brief speech, in the enthusiasm of a new convert; but it is also true, that this proved to be a purely spasmodic effort--for, ever since, he has been playing the part of a 'dumb dog' on that subject, or, if he has spoken at all, it has been in disparagement of the inflexible opponents of slavery, and in glorification of such a Titanic apostate, and servile tool of the Slave Power, as DANIEL WEBSTER, even after his infamous 7th of March speech, and whatever else fell from his lips, in vindication of the Fugitive Slave Law, subsequent to his death.*
In the course of his professional prayer, Mr. Kirk thanked God that, slavery aside, this country gives to all its inhabitants all the rights and immunities of heaven-born freedom. But it happens that slavery cannot be put aside: it is an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent power, every where abridging freedom of speech, fettering the press, suppressing discussion, debauching the moral sense, blinding the vision, poisoning the life-blood of the community, subjugating the religious sentiment to its will, pandering to unscrupulous demagogueism, bribing the ambitious, intimidating the weak, stimulating the base, corrupting the sentimentally virtuous, misleading the unwary, inflaming the prejudiced, persecuting the upright, ostracizing the brace, creating divisions, exciting tumults, sapping the foundations of society, destroying all reverence alike for 'the higher law' and the rights of man, and 'full of all deceivableness of unrighteousness'--and, in more than one half the nation, territorially considered, subjecting to insult, outrage, outlawry, or lynch law, every one suspected of 'remembering those in bonds as being bound with them'! Hence, no man is in the enjoyment of his heaven-derived rights on the American soil. An overwhelming majority of the white inhabitants are the vassals of the most Satanic power now 'exalting itself above all that is called God' on the face of the earth. Three million seven hundred thousand human beings exchangeable property and marketable commodities in this 'land of civil and religious liberty'!--the right to seek their liberation, by moral instrumentalities, fiercely denied; nay, the right to inquire into their condition treated as an unpardonable offence!--and all the powers and resources of the national government actively wielded to multiply new victims ad infinitum, and to make the boundaries of slavedom from the rising to the setting of the sun!
Mr. Kirk supplicated God to bring this hideous system to a speedy and perpetual end. As it could not long exist, were it not for such sentimental trimmers and facile compromisers as himself, and especially were it not sanctioned by that Church, which he claims to be 'the pillar and ground of truth,' we submit that putting the shoulder to the wheel is a more effectual act than simply calling upon Jupiter, with whatever earnestness of speech or solemnity of manner. The difficulty does not lie with God. He is neither asleep, nor gone on a long journey, nor insensate, nor lukewarm. The responsibility lies with the people. Read the 59th chapter of Isaiah, and see how marvelously their moral lineaments are portrayed! Their duty is plain--'to lose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burden, and to let the oppressed go free.' God needs no entreaties in this case. With Him, 'Now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation; harden not your hearts.'
Mr. Kirk has yet to pronounce the slaveholder unworthy of religious fellowship; he has yet to treat the act of making a man property, as he would treat a theological heresy; he has yet to preach a gospel that imancipates [emancipates] the bodies as well as souls of believes; he has yet to signify either indignation or grief at the pro-slavery course pursued by the American Board of Commissioners;--in short, he has yet to be IN PRINCIPLE the opponent of slavery. Why should such a man be selected to pray for divine aid in the abolition of that 'sum of all villainies'? Is it on the ground of 'fair play'?
In the course of some introductory remarks, Dr. HOWE (Chairman of the Lecturing Committee) took occasion to comment upon the letter we sent to the Committee, declining to deliver one of the lectures of the course, in consequence of the invitation sent to such slaveholding bullies and desperadoes as Atchinson, Douglas, Wise, Toombs, &c. Either Dr. Howe should have read our letter to the assembly, or he should have held his peace in regard to it. If it was too long to be read on that occasion, it was too long to be criticised and condemned. Comparatively few, in the audience, had seen it. Instead of stating our views upon the subject, (the logical force and moral constituency of which, no one has attempted to deny,) Dr. H. called out some of the strongest epithets used by us, and adroitly repeated them, without stating in what connection they were used, or to whom they were applied. This was extremely unfair. But he did us still greater injustice, and was guilty of misrepresenting our language and sentiments alike, when he charged us with declaring, with regard to Southern slaveholders, that 'hanging would be too good for them.' What we said in our letter was--'Instead of being politely invited and handsomely paid to utter their blasphemies against the God of freedom and the rights of man, they deserve to be capitally executed, 'without benefit of clergy,' (if capital punishment be permissible in any case, which I do not believe,) even under the law of Congress which they themselves endorse, making it a piratical act, worthy of death, to enslave any native-born African, by bringing him to this country for that purpose; for the crime consists solely in the act of enslavement, no matter on what pretence.' Thus we simply tried them by their own standard, and rendered a verdict accordingly. Was this declaring, on our part, that 'hanging was too good for them'? What misrepresentation?
Dr. Howe said that the Committee believed in 'fair play,' and in 'allowing even the criminal to be heard in self-defence.' But this dodge will not answer; for it is not a question of 'fair play.' And who thinks of associating the vilest criminals with honorable men, and paying them roundly for defending robbery, concubinage, adultery, murder, and all imaginable villainy? The whole thing is utterly preposterous! It is sufficiently revolting to hear a man-stealer, on his own voluntary motion, defend his nefarious purposes, without offering him renumeration for such rascality.
Mr. Mann's lecture exceeded our expectations, in the boldness of its utterance, the cogent of its reasoning, the keenness of its satire, and the directness of its appeals to the moral nature of his auditors. It was purely elementary and ethical, but none the less valuable on that account--vindicating as it did the natural, inherent and sovereign equality of the black man with the white man, and demonstrating that the most flagrant act beneath the skies is to turn a human being into a thing--striking down, by the same blow, natural, civil, religious, and spiritual liberty, utterly subverting the gospel of Jesus Christ, and impiously dethroning the God of the universe. An abstract of it may be found in another column, copied from the Evening Telegraph.
In alluding to Moses, conducting the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, he made what was intended to be a smart fling at the Disunion abolitionists, but, utterly defective in analogy, was without point. Moses, he said, did not stand aloof, like the modern Disunionists, and hurl paper pellets at the head of the Pharaoh; but he went boldly into the presence of the tyrant, and led his countrymen out of bondage by a sublime stampede. If this was intended as an impeachment of the moral and physical courage of Disunionists, because they do not go to the South, it was just as applicable to himself, and to the whole body of Free Soilers, as to them. What else was intended by it, we failed or perceive; nor could we understand why it was made in such a connection. The Disunionists are, in fact, as far as circumstances will allow, closely intimating the example of Moses, in demanding A SEPARATION FOR THE SAKE OF FREEDOM, and in order to ensure the speedy downfall of a bloody tyranny. They are endeavoring to lead the people of the North beyond the sway of the Slave Power, that they may be no longer its vassals and tools,--making the slaveholding boundaries the Red Sea of deliverance, not only for themselves, but, as an inevitable sequence, for the miserable bondmen of the South. But what if, while denouncing the despotism of the Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron had entered into a compact with him, to secure some desirable advantages for themselves, and agreed to give him no molestation, if he would not make any encroachments upon their own rights? What would such a course have effected? And is not this the exact position of the whole body of Free Soilers, Fusionists and Republicans at the North? But Moses was for outing the connection, without any delay--so are we; he was for absolute and complete separation--so are we. To this extent the cases are analogous.
Mr. Mann would greatly oblige all Disunion abolitionists, by showing them how they can be true to the principles they profess, the cause they advocate, the victims they represent, by swearing to maintain a Constitution which provides for a slave oligarchy in Congress, for the capture of fugitive slaves on Northern soil, and for the suppression of slave insurrections at the South. In branding such a Constitution as 'a covenant with death and an agreement with hell,' and refusing to take the oath of allegiance therein,--and so necessarily disfranchising themselves for conscience sake, because they cannot do otherwise,--are they not justified by all the warnings of the Prophets, by all the teachings of Jesus, by the example of the Apostles, by the glorious contumsey of the whole army of saints and martyrs in every age of the world, as well as by the loftiest considerations of justice, honor, and morality? Will Mr. Mann deny that such is the right interpretation of that instrument? He has yet to do so. And, besides, what if he be disposed to construe it, like GERRIT SMITH, wholly on the side of freedom,--outfacing the nation itself, and disregarding all the facts of history, ever since the adoption of the Constitution,--how does his anomalous construction relieve us, who believe it to be grossly fallacious and essentially perfidious to the South, and who conscientiously believe the Constitution to be precisely what it has uniformly and every where been construed, by the people of every State, by all the courts, by all Legislative bodies, by Congress under every administration from Washington to Pierce, by all sects and parties, by the whole nation as one man, by all and every thing that can define, determine, and authoritatively settle its meaning, purpose, and scope?
Mr. Mann paid the highest tribute to the spirit and example of Christ, as transcending all precedent, and divinely excellent; yet he went for blood, and slaughter, and desolation, in given emergencies to defend life and liberty, and thus transformed the Prince of Peace into a fighting patriot, and the Martyr of Calvary into a military hero. We neither so understand nor believe in Jesus. It is as easy to reconcile slavery as war with the Gospel. They both 'come of evil,' and are both to be destroyed.
Mr. King read the poem by Whittier in an admirable manner. It was finely conceived and carefully written, and was listened to with unmingled satisfaction. We missed in it, however, the glowing fervor and radiant fire which mark the earlier productions of its gifted author; and the concluding portion of it, counseling forbearance and prudence, &c. &c., seemed to us incongruous, mistimed, and out of place, in the midst of the din of arms and the thunders of revolution.
* Read the following extracts from a discourse delivered by the Rev. Mr. Kirk on the death of DANIEL WEBSTER, in full view of his transcendent inquiry, the Fugitive Slave Bill, and all--a discourse 'published at the request of the young men of the Mount Vernon Association':--
'The American people should gratefully acknowledge Daniel Webster as a gift from God (!!) ... God, who raised up Solomon for Israel, raised up our Daniel for the United States (!) ... God bless his fragrant memory! God be praised for him and his work!....We know not the pilot who could have marked the course for Freedom's barque, had he not done it (!) ... He rode on no hobby for the sake of gaining him favor or votes. Principles, eternal principles--TRUTH and JUSTICE--ever secured his delighted attention, and occupied his thoughts (!)... His reverence for the Bible was very great (!)... His whole career manifests the purity and strength of his patriotism (!)... it is dark, very dark. The rock of Marshfield is removed!'
"Course of Anti-Slavery Lectures," Boston (MA) Liberator, November 30, 1855, p. 2.